Psychoanalytical and psychodynamic therapies are based on an individual’s unconscious thoughts and perceptions that have developed throughout their childhood, and how these affect their current behaviour and thoughts.

Behavioural therapies are based on the way you think (cognitive) and/or the way you behave. These therapies recognise that it is possible to change, or recondition, our thoughts or behaviour to overcome specific problems.

In the research reported here, we investigated the debiasing effect of mindfulness meditation on the sunk-cost bias. We conducted four studies (one correlational and three experimental); the results suggest that increased mindfulness reduces the tendency to allow unrecoverable prior costs to influence current decisions. Study 1 served as an initial correlational demonstration of the positive relationship between trait mindfulness and resistance to the sunk-cost bias. Studies 2a and 2b were laboratory experiments examining the effect of a mindfulness-meditation induction on increased resistance to the sunk-cost bias. In Study 3, we examined the mediating mechanisms of temporal focus and negative affect, and we found that the sunk-cost bias was attenuated by drawing one’s temporal focus away from the future and past and by reducing state negative affect, both of which were accomplished through mindfulness meditation Continue reading “Debiasing the Mind Through Meditation”→

Once you’ve identified a toxic person, you’ll begin to find their behavior more predictable and easier to understand. This will equip you to think rationally about when and where you have to put up with them and when and where you don’t. You can establish boundaries, but you’ll have to do so consciously and proactively.

Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people’s buttons.

As important as it is to learn how to deal with different kinds of people, truly toxic people will never be worth your time and energy—and they take a lot of each. Toxic people create unnecessary complexity, strife, and, worst of all, stress.

This general group of people — whom we can safely call “toxic” — might resent your progress for any number of reasons. Perhaps they think you’ll no longer be in their life if you improve too much. Maybe they feel like your improvement exposes their own shortcomings. Or perhaps they’re just threatened by the idea of change.

The causes are less important than the effects, which can take the form of anger, resentment, frustration, manipulation or cruelty (or a debilitating combination thereof). At any given moment, you might be finding yourself dealing with toxic friends, family members or colleagues who — consciously or unconsciously — are sabotaging your happiness and growth. Identifying these individuals and understanding how to manage them is absolutely crucial to your well being, success and happiness. Continue reading “People — whom we can safely call “toxic””→

So, detachment means not getting emotionally involved with drama, even though the drama is occurring all around us, and even though our loved ones might be insisting that we go through a drama with them. A person who can detach is NOT selfish, cold-hearted, or insensitive, but that’s what we feel they are when they won’t go along with our drama. Misery loves company, and when we can’t get company for our drama, we make the person’s lack of emotional participation a whole other drama to add to the one we’re already experiencing. So now we have two dramas to deal with — and the person is still detached! We judge that person as being selfish, cold-hearted, and insensitive, when in reality what they are doing is respecting our Free Will choice to feel what we feel, and their Free Will choice to determine for themselves what they will feel.